The American Dream: Or Was That Just a Movie? is a mixed-media photographic project examining the gap between the American Dream imagined through cinema and the lived experiences of immigrants in the United States. Drawing from Tsao’s own experience of moving from Taiwan to the U.S., the series uses staged self-portraiture to reconstruct familiar cinematic ideals of love, freedom, and success. Behind these carefully constructed scenes lies a growing awareness of economic uncertainty, social isolation, and the everyday realities that complicate the promise of a better life. By placing theatrical images alongside the emotional and material tensions of immigrant experience, the project asks how cinema shapes our expectations of America—and what happens when the dream meets reality.